Marion teachers get high marks, but state will issue revised report

The state late Wednesday said it will double check and revise the results of a controversial new teacher evaluation system.

By Joe CallahanStaff writer

The state late Wednesday said it will double check and revise the results of a controversial new teacher evaluation system.

The information for Marion County, released earlier in the day, showed that nearly all — 99.5 percent — of Marion County’s teachers were rated in the top two of five performance categories for the 2011-12 school year.

Whether that figure or any other figures concerning Marion County will be revised was not known late Wednesday. According to the Associated Press, a glitch in the number crunching led to duplicate reporting in some districts.

Even before the announcement late Wednesday the evaluations have been the subject of much controversy statewide. Florida agreed to a more stringent evaluation system in order to get more federal education funding.

The controversy stems from the fact that half of a teacher’s evaluation is tied to student performance. Union officials maintain that teachers do not educate the same children from one year to the next, thus those test score comparisons are not the best gauge.

The state did not release individual teacher evaluations. Marion County officials say teachers will get them from their principals before winter break begins on Dec. 14. Only district and individual school data were released on Wednesday.

Wednesday’s report — still subject to possible review and revision in light of the announcement late Wednesday — states that 99.5 percent of Marion’s teachers received one of the top two ratings. Statewide, 96.7 percent of teachers got one of the top two ratings.

In Marion, 11.7 percent of teachers received a “highly effective” rating. Statewide, the figure was 22.2 percent.

In Marion, 87.8 percent of teachers earned the next best rating: “effective.” In Florida, 74.5 percent teachers got that grade.

None of the teachers who were evaluated in Marion received “unsatisfactory,” which is the lowest rating, the report stated. Only 12 teachers received “needs improvement,” according to a 160-page document released by DOE.

Kathy Hebda, DOE’s deputy chancellor of educator quality, said in a press conference that every district developed its own evaluation system based on requirement framework as part of the state’s Race to the Top grant.

That means the data released on Wednesday were not actually comparing apples to apples across the state, though Hebda said these district evaluations are “valid” ways to begin assessing teachers.

In January, districts will review their evaluation processes and the state will help each district establish stricter benchmarks in the spring. Hebda said data may then be more consistent from district to district.

For example, some district evaluations showed that 100 percent of teachers rated in the top two categories. But in Alachua County, only 77.3 percent of the teachers received a grade in the top two categories. That prompted an outcry from Alachua County teachers, who received their individual evaluations last Friday.

Chris Altobello, president of the teachers’ union known as the Marion Education Association, said the union — like most throughout the state — believe the current system needs to be ditched and a new one devised.

He said the current system needed to be piloted before it was officially used. He said there are many flaws in the new system, which primarily assesses teacher and student performance trends.

Marion’s evaluation is based on two main categories: 50 percent from principal observations and 50 percent on student performance. Student performance is based on learning gains on state FCAT scores, or other testing if students do not take the FCAT.

The most controversial part of the evaluation process is the student learning-gain, which is known as the Value-Added Model or VAM.

Altobello calls it a complicated formula that “only 12 people in the country knows how to use.”

“I really don’t care how good we did on these evaluations as a district; the entire process needs to be thrown out,” he said, adding it’s time to take a more methodical look at how the assessments will be implemented.

After the evaluation data were released, the Florida Education Association also expressed concern over the use of VAM.

FEA officials said it is “unfortunate the Florida Department of Education has been forced to engage in the unfair practice of publicly releasing the preliminary results” as required by Senate Bill 736.

“This report confirms what educators across Florida already knew — that the teacher evaluation system imposed under SB 736 is still not ready for prime time,” FEA President Andy Ford said.

Rick Lankford, Marion’s deputy superintendent over curriculum, said there is no perfect solution to the required evaluation system, considering it merges objective observations of teachers with testing data.

Beginning in the 2014-15 school year, the evaluations will be used to determine the pay of some teachers.

All teachers working prior to 2014-15 will have the option not to have their pay tied to the evaluations. Only teachers starting their careers in 2014-15 must have their pay tied to the new evaluations, she said.

Also on Wednesday, the state released the evaluations of non-classroom instructional personnel, such as media specialists, deans and counselors. Again, Marion County employees rated higher than the state average.

The report said that 99.3 percent of these employees were effective or highly effective. Statewide, 97.8 percent of such employees scored in the top two categories.

Contact Joe Callahan at 867-4113 or joe.callahan@starbanner.com. Follow him Twitter at JoeOcalaNews.